Elavon has launched a secure payment product that turns mobile devices, such as cell phones, into chip card payment terminals, the unit of U.S. Bancorp announced Jan.4.
Retailers may download the MobileMerchant app to any smartphone, while an accompanying Bluetooth-connected chip-and-PIN point-of-sale device "securely captures and encrypts the card data," Altanta-based Elavon said in a press release.
The EMV chip-card standard is used in the United Kingdom and other countries to improve security over magnetic stripe cards. Some U.S. issuers also offer the cards to travelers to use internationally.
"Our goal is to make payment acceptance easy for all businesses, regardless of type, size or acceptance environment," said Simon Haslam, Elavon's president of international markets, in the release.
